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‘Iran knows Azerbaijan’s territorial aspirations and the role of a deterrent factor of Armenian Armed Forces’: Aharon Vardanyan

August 08,2017 13:35

As informed earlier, on August 6, the meeting between the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani took place, during which they referred to the regional security in line with other important issues. Aravot.am has conducted an interview with Iranologist Aharon Vardanyan on the mentioned topic:

– Mr. Vardanyan, Hassan Rouhani emphasized that he highlights the establishment of security in the region, particularly on Iranian borders. According to your opinion, what is Armenia’s, its friend’s role and significance in this issue?

– For the Iranian side, the establishment and preservation of security around its borders have been important and the official Tehran has stated it for numeral times, highlighting that for the Iranian side Artsakh conflict specifically has exceptionally one solution, which constitutes peace. On this, the IRI President Hassan Rouhani made an announcement both at the end of the previous year and during the visit to Yerevan, both in Tehran and during the meeting with RA President Serzh Sargsyan, as well as via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other diplomatic paths. Back then Iran even tried to undertake active intermediary steps regarding Artsakh conflict. Presently Iran’s interest in Artsakh conflict peaceful settlement is again very big, forasmuch as Iran is the sole force among regional forces which has a border with all the conflicting parties. Well, official Tehran, at a rhetoric level at least, has always tried to preserve the balance in Artsakh issue, but at the level of actions and steps, we see something else. It is not a secret that Iran and Azerbaijan have a number of problems in a variety of fields. In Iran, they know the territorial aspirations of the Azerbaijani Republic and the respective policy Baku conducts relatively to this issue very well. In reality, they clearly see how the first adversary of Iran – Israel uses the territory of Azerbaijan against Iran, etc. Visualize for a moment, if on this background the Azerbaijani Republic directs all the resources which it spends on Armenian side on the Iranian side, then Iran will have a lot of problems. Consequently, from this perspective, the Armenian Armed Forces, we may say, play a deterrent role, forasmuch as Artsakh border with Iran is essentially viewed as an Armenian-Iranian border.

– It is clear that one of the primary destabilizing factors of the region is Azerbaijan: how do you imagine Armenia-Iran partnership in the field of security in this context?

– As already mentioned, there are a lot of wrinkly questions between Tehran-Baku relations. All that was clearly seen in days, during Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration ceremony, when Baku replied to the invitation of Tehran at Parliamentary President’s level. Iranian side is clearly conscious that the instability in the region is in the interests of solely the official Baku, forasmuch as the Armenian side simply does not have the need of it: the winning side will never strain the situation, this is very plain. Consequently, in this context, Serzh Sargsyan’s thought implying that the two countries are considered the security guarantors of the South Caucasus fits within this context. All the mentioned is via taking into consideration that both countries can and wish to certainly cooperate to found and preserve security.

– The development of Iran-Armenia-Turkmenistan trilateral cooperation in the field of gas and energy has been given an importance to during the meeting alike. As to your estimation, how much perspective is particularly the gas transfer IRI-RA-Turkmenistan format?

– In this format, the first discussions have taken place still in January of the current year when the Vice-President had received the Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran and Turkmenistan to Armenia and had had a discussion with them. At that time especially the opportunities and perspectives of the trilateral energetic cooperation had been discussed. In the result of that very meeting, an appointment was made to proceed with the work and to bring the discussions on a more tangible field. Thus, during Serzh Sargsyan-Hassan Rouhani meeting the discussion of this issue means that the sides undertake the possible steps, implement discussions to make the plan more tangible. Every plan may be brought to life if respective will and wish is manifested. This particular program is a prospective one in the sense that all the parties have the experience of bringing to life various programs together with each other. Important is that a respective impulse by the Iranian side is in place to realize the transit issues relative to the gas issue, and the Armenian side has given the respective treatment to that impulse. It should be noted that this partnership is extremely important for Turkmenistan alike. The latter has trouble with exporting gas. As much as I am informed, the cooperation in this field with Russia is temporarily frozen and Turkmenistan has troubles with Iran regarding the price and exports solely to China. Consequently, any given suggestion of gas export is of an interest of Turkmenistan.

Luiza SUKIASYAN

 

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